SAMANTHA Williams and Peter Lee adopted Carpathian Alsatian Aslan and just a few months later the couple spotted Florentina, another Carpathian Alsatian, on the Millions of Friends shelter’s website.

A CITY couple who adopted a Romanian rescue dog have helped save a second hound who they believe could be their pet’s sister.

Samantha Williams and Peter Lee were delighted to provide a loving home for Carpathian Alsatian Aslan, who was rescued from the streets of Brasov by the city’s Millions of Friends
animal shelter.

Then, a few
months after Aslan had settled into his new canine life in Edinburgh, the couple spotted Florentina, another Carpathian Alsatian, on the shelter’s website.

With her soft brown eyes and tortoiseshell fluffy coat, they couldn’t help but be struck by her resemblance to Aslan.

And at eight years old, Florentina is also the same age as Aslan.

Convinced
the two dogs must be related, Samantha and Pete immediately contacted UK-based charity Love UnderDogs – the charity that re-homed Aslan with them.

“We did a double take when we saw Florentina’s photograph on the website – she looked the double of Aslan, only a little thinner,” said Pete, 40. “They have the same eyes, almost identical facial markings and she’s the same age as Aslan.

“We’re convinced she’s Aslan’s sister so we contacted Love UnderDogs and asked them to sponsor her to be brought over here to be re-homed.

“They’ve now sponsored Florentina, which is great.

“I guess we’d have to do some kind of DNA test to establish whether Florentina and Aslan are siblings.

“Florentina will need a lot of training as she suffers from behavioural problems after years of neglect.

“But if we can, we’d love to take her in. And if she does turn out to be Aslan’s sister, all the better.”

Love UnderDogs was behind the rescue mission which saw Aslan transported to the UK.

An estimated 500,000 dogs live on Romanian streets, and they are often caught and killed.

Some strays are treated brutally and are poisoned, set on fire, or beaten to death.

On
the Romanian shelter’s website, Florentina is described as being “very friendly and eager for attention”. Pete said he hopes for Florentina to be flown to the UK this summer.

He said: “the problem at the moment is that she’s frightened of confined spaces, which makes transportation very difficult.

“However,
we’re hopeful that she’ll be ready to travel this summer and, if she can, we’re going to arrange for her and Aslan to meet.

“If they are brother and sister, it will be lovely to see them play together.”

Architect Samantha said Aslan has become “part of the family” since they took him in last September.

She said: “When we first got him he seemed incredibly sad.

“We could really tell he’d had a bad life – you could see it in his eyes.

“He’d also bark at other dogs when we took him out and he didn’t want to play much.

“But he’s really settled in now – he’s part of the family and we couldn’t live without him.

“He doesn’t bark at other dogs anymore and he loves to play.

“We love him to bits and we look forward to him being reunited with his possible long-lost sister.”

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